


Alone Is Not the Same as Lonely

by ShatteredHalo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Injury, M/M, Past Character Death, Solitude, forest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:44:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShatteredHalo/pseuds/ShatteredHalo
Summary: Dean Winchester has lived alone in the forest for ten years.He's lost everybody in his life, so in order to keep the pattern from doing what patterns do best and repeating, he decided to basically become a hermit.In the middle of the night during one of the worst thunderstorms he's ever seen,there's a knock on the door.





	1. The Setup

Dean Winchester lived alone.

Make no mistake, that by no means made him lonely.

It doesn't take solitude to make a person lonely.

He'd lost his mother, Mary, when he was four to a house fire.

Then he'd lost his father when he was twenty-two to Cirrhosis of the liver.  John never really had gotten over Mary's death and was always convinced that somehow Dean had caused it.

The last straw, after a string of near-death experiences, broken hearts, mistakes, and beatings, was when Dean lost his kid brother, Sam, in a drunk driving incident where he was completely sober.

He lost anyone and everyone he loved in one way or another, and because he'd lost them, it meant he had no one.  No one to look after, no one to worry about, no one to protect.  

It was then that he made his move into the forest.  

Years of training, possibly the only good thing John had ever instilled in Dean, had made him self-sufficient enough to survive out in the wild on his own.

He found it wasn't as lonely as he'd pictured.

He wasn't bothered by the silence.

By the quiet of the forest.

But none of that would have mattered, had he  _been_ bothered by it, he would have stayed there regardless.

It was the only place he posed no real threat to anybody.

In the middle of absolute nowhere, in a remote location few would be lucky to find, he couldn't ruin more lives.

He wouldn't lose more people.

So when there was a goddamn knock at his door at a time no human should be awake at, in the middle of a fucking  _thunderstorm_ no less, excuse him for being wary, for not answering the first time.

He wasn't even sure the voice was real, to be completely honest.  When he sat up in his bed, sleepy-eyed and confused thinking  _it's probably another dream, or a branch, or something that's not alive please god don't let it be alive_ , he wasn't even going to bother, was just going to roll over and get some sleep.

Then he heard it.  Weak and hoarse, but definitely  _there_ , was a voice.

"Hello? Is anybody in there?"

When he heard that voice his whole body tightened at once, instinct telling him to go and help, but his ten years alone telling him there was no damn way there was a person there.

He heard another few rhythmic taps as he crossed the space to the door and worried his lip between his teeth.

Knife in hand, he carefully opened the door, shivering when cold air swept into the cabin.

He only got a glimpse of the stranger, weary and leaning heavily against the door frame, through a flash of lightning.  Dean saw red in multiple places, and a few limbs that didn't look quite right, under the blue-white light.

"Thank god." the stranger murmured, soft enough under the beating of the rain that Dean almost missed it, before his legs gave out and he fell forward through the doorway.  Instinctively, Dean's arms were out, catching the disfigured man before he could hit the floor.

Unfortunately, the stranger was unconscious before he even hit Dean's arms.

Frowning and grunting a little under the weight, Dean decided, without really thinking, two things.

One, he couldn't just leave the guy outside in the hell-raising storm threatening to break down trees and tear his roof off.

Two, the door needed to be shut.

So he lifted the unconscious stranger as well as he could, over to what passed as a sofa in Dean's cabin, kicking the door shut as soon as he could, and laid him down carefully.

 _What in the heavenly fuck was a person doing at his fucking doorstep._ He paced the floor worriedly, never taking his eyes off what he could now tell was definitely a man with dark hair.

 _Surprisingly heavy for such a lean guy._ Dean thought, huffing softly under his breath.

He took a seat on the edge of his bed.

_Well what the hell happens now?_


	2. Play Doctor

Dean wasn't able to fall asleep after that. Honestly who would have? He'd been alone for  _ten damn years_.  Just the knowledge of someone else present made him anxious in and of itself, but o have them wounded and laying in his home? The thought alone was basically incomprehensible to the power of a billion.

It didn't help that there was no escape either, considering Mother Nature decided this would be a fantastic time to wreak havoc on the forest.

"Just fucking peachy. Huh, Sammy?" Dean asked softly, touching the amulet at his throat and turning his eyes to the ceiling.

He heard fabric rustle and registered it a few seconds later, eyes slowly shifting to focus in on the breathing figure on his couch.

He assessed carefully, as best he could from where he was, what the injuries were.  Dislocated shoulder probably, broken arm maybe? Cuts and scrapes here and there... and a few nasty gashes Dean could see even from where he was sitting.

_Shit._

 

He pressed his lips together and started moving around the house, cleaning and clearing places that he'd been too lazy to bother tidying up after he'd eaten.  His nerves were slowly creeping on edge one by one, every movement making him more antsy, every ragged breath from the stranger making his heart jump up a few paces until he caught himself standing still, eyes unfocused staring out the window, a rag gripped tight enough in his hands that he could feel his fingernails through the fabric.

Dean blinked a few times, dragging a hand down the lower half of his face as he turned to look at the stranger.

He wanted the guy out of here. Out of his home and space and brain, and if Dean wanted him out of there, he'd need to make sure the guy healed up as quickly as possible.

And that meant taking care of him until he would be self-sufficient enough to make the trip back to civilization.

"Worst ding-dong-ditch ever." He muttered to himself, throwing the rag down on the table and moving a little softer about the shelves in the cabin, gathering first-aid supplies in order to fix what he could.

He took a few steps toward the couch nervously, a damp towel in his hand.  He crouched next to the stranger's torso, arranging various tools and such around him within reach.

"Please don't bite my head off..." he requested of the unconscious body next to him, reaching up to unzip the jacket covering the man's torso. He winced at the sound of the zipper, checking the stranger's face to be sure he wasn't woken up.

"I've gotta think of somethin' to call you rather than stranger." Dean muttered under his breath.

He relaxed a little after that, discovering his parameters, what ways could he move the guy and how he could shift him around to pull away the battered clothes he was wearing...

 

It took the better part of an hour just to find and clean what shallow cuts and scrapes he could, working silently and efficiently, wincing every time the man made any sort of uncomfortable sound, praying he wouldn't wake up.

It wasn't until he approached the gash that cut deep down the length of the man's upper arm that he hesitated.

"You need stitches." he murmured, "If I give you stitches you'll definitely wake up and probably rip out... or damage... the stitches... If I wait until you wake up... It might get infected or you could bleed out... I-" He paused when the guy's arm moved, reaching out to try and prevent him from worsening the cut, "Don't move. Please don't move."

"Okay."

Dean jumped back, nearly tripping over his own feet in an effort to get away from the body, "You're awake." he said softly, hand spreading over his chest.  His pulse had kicked up pretty damn fast, and he could hardly differentiate between the beats, "How long have you been awake?"

"Since you dropped something on my ribs."

"Oh."

Dean moved a little closer, "I need to- you need stitches in a few places." Dean bit his lip a little, returning to his crouched position next to the couch.  He kept a little more distance between them than before.

"Necessary?"

Dean nodded a little, looking up from the wound on the man's arm and meeting  _oh hot damn_ , startlingly blue eyes that seemed to stand out amongst the blood and dirt everywhere, "I think so."

The stranger nodded, turning his head back toward the ceiling as gingerly as he could, "Better sooner than later."

Dean took a deep breath and picked up the needle and thread, "This is gonna suck."

 

About twenty three stitches later, the stranger was left groaning and shaking with a neat line of stitches down his upper arm and a few underneath his collarbone.  Dean couldn't help feel a horrible sense of guilt curling in his stomach when he finally leaned back, "Done." he said softly, setting the needle down.

The stranger managed a strained smile (well, more of a grimace really, but Dean saw it for what it was) and let out a shaky breath, "Thank god."

Dean let out a short nervous chuckle, "I suppose you're not going to take it too well when I tell you your shoulder's dislocated as well?"

There was a short silence that, had Dean not been living in all kinds of silence for a decade, could have been considered horribly tense.

"Get it over with." the man grit out eventually.

Dean didn't respond to that, just moved, sitting where he could without injuring the man further and got into position.

 

The amount of flashbacks he got, in similar positions with either his brother or his dad in the stranger's position instead was nearly overwhelming.  He found himself zoning out a little in their wake, hands hovering over their places.  He shook his head to snap out of it.

"On three." He mimicked his memories, "One," it was a lie, you never go on three, everybody knows that, "Two." He manipulated the bones and cringed a little as he felt them snap back into their respective positions.

The stranger suppressed a groan, jaw tightening to such an extent that Dean was actually worried whether or not he might break a tooth.

Dean moved away, releasing his hold and taking a few steps back from the stranger to let him recover.  He started cleaning up the first aid supplies littering the floor, busying his hands while he let the man recover. 

 

It nearly made him jump out of his skin when he heard the voice again, unused to any sort of unanticipated human noise in his vicinity.

"Thank you."

Dean turned toward the stranger, crossing the small space between his current position and the couch in a few steps, "Rest." he said gently, reaching for an extra blanket he used when the winter got particularly bad. He unfolded it, gingerly laying it over the lean figure on his couch.

A hand appeared in his peripheral vision and he turned toward it.  It took him all of ten seconds, looking between the man's face and his hand, before he realized he was supposed to shake the hand.

He did so gingerly, not wanting to injure the guy anymore because of unseen injuries.

"What's your name?" asked a tired voice and Dean turned his eyes back to the stranger's face.  He contemplated not giving it, or giving a fake one at least.  Maybe his brother's, just in case the man had gotten banged up running from somebody dangerous, that way Dean wouldn't end up tied up in whatever the issue was... but too much time passed in his decision and before he could pick an alias his mouth was moving,

"De- My name is Dean."

Their hands slipped apart and the stranger smiled a little, just barely lifting the corner of his mouth, "Thank you for fixing me, Dean." he said tiredly.

That almost made Dean smile, "How 'bout you, what's your name?"

The stranger closed his eyes and for a moment, Dean thought he wasn't going to respond. Until he heard the voice again, low and rough and so human that it almost made Dean miss his old life.

"Castiel."


	3. Just a Hike

It was probably the most adventurous hike of his life, and Castiel was going to make sure he made it out alive just so he could prove that he wasn't completely worthless, that he wasn't just the useless rebel of the family. He could survive alone, do this one thing on his own, right?

It had gone pretty good for the first week and a half, his provisions held strong for the most part, he made good time across the 100-mile woods, it was a progressive time.

The first thunderstorm hit out of nowhere, the weather went from three fluffy clouds in the sky to a massive downpour in about ten minutes, which wasn't necessarily a problem.  Castiel loved the rain, the only reason it was sort of an issue was that alot of the not waterproof items he had brought were then soaked and ruined.

Honestly it was stupid of him to think he could even bring essential items that weren't waterproof. It was April, for fuck's sake and in order to bring May Flowers what does April have to offer the world? Showers. 

Little did he suspect that Mother Nature fully intended to deliver on that like she never had before.

After that, Castiel did fairly well into his second week in the woods.  Despite a few missing supplies, he fared pretty well thanks to his brothers for all the survival lessons they'd so viciously put him through, claiming he would thank them later.  He did, and he could practically feel their 'I told you so's' from hundreds of miles away.

 

Then the second storm had hit not too long after, and it had gotten pretty bad.  It was the worst thunderstorm Castiel had experienced in a while, but honestly? He felt pretty at home in the rain.  The water crashing down around him, soaking the Earth and the trees reminding him he meant nothing to the world, that he and everybody else was just in the way of Mother Nature and they should be glad she let them live as long as she did.  Lightning brightened the sky, showing the floor around him.  It was only about noon, but the clouds were dark enough to nearly darken the world.  And of course, the trees didn't exactly help with the light level.

Castiel could clearly remember feeling a shiver trickle down his spine whenever the thunder shook the Earth. He rested his hand on a tree once, stopping to look toward the sky, taking in the beauty of nature and the dazzling chaos of the storm.

There was another crack of thunder and he smiled, closing his eyes for a moment.

And then there was a loud crash, something that hadn't come from the sky.  He'd opened his eyes in time to watch a tree branch fall down and smack him on the chest, knocking the breath out of him.

He'd expected to fall, hit the ground and have to push the branch off of him, what he hadn't expected was to keep falling, rolling down a hill he hadn't seen earlier, or at least hadn't remembered seeing.

At some point he hit his head on another tree, or a rock, or something hard that honestly could have been a dead animal for all he could differentiate, and then his vision went black.

 

Time passed, Castiel blinked back into consciousness and the storm was still raging, but instead of relatively dark for mid-afternoon it was absolutely pitch black out.

 _Fan-fucking-tastic_.

Castiel attempted to get to his feet, which used more than one tree, and a lot more time than he'd ever admit to anyone ever, but he got up and started stumbling around the forest, attempting to find some sort of shelter.

It seemed like hours, maybe it was.  Maybe it had only been minutes.  He staggered around the forest, tripping over things and pausing more than once to try to get rid of the serious case of vertigo he had going on, squeezing his eyes shut and resting his forehead against whatever surface he was using as a temporary crutch before he'd give up and continue the journey.

He didn't notice the cabin until he was actually leaning up against the side of it.  He stared blankly at the pane of glass for a good solid minute before he actually registered that it was a window.  That meant people. Hope flared valiantly in his chest.

There was no light, but even if there was no one in there maybe he could at least take shelter inside the building right?

He staggered around to the door, nearly face planting on his way up the three steps.

Leaning heavily against the frame of the door, he knocked, wincing as he tried to move his right arm. Some sort of injury he hadn't noticed before.

_That can't be good._

He took a few deep breaths, trying to gather his vocal chords to ask over the thrum of the storm, "Hello? Is anybody there?"

Castiel knocked again, a short pattern so it wasn't just some branch in the storm.

 

He was about to attempt to open the door when it swung inwards, disorienting him for a second before he saw a person there, looking scared and gorgeous definitely sleep-rumpled in the glow of another lightning flash.

Had this been any other circumstance, Castiel might have voiced any of his greetings, 'Sorry I woke you, but I appear to be bleeding, could you help me?' 'I just got hit by a tree and I'm soaked to the bone.' or anything along the lines of something more eloquent than the ragged breath and the short little "Thank God." he actually managed to get out before his consciousness gave out on him again.


	4. That's Right, He Exists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized they're called links because they connect one website to another.

_"Sammy?"_

_"Hey Dean."_

_Dean looked out the window, "Aren't you driving home? Don't call me from the road, kid, that's how you get in a wreck."_

_There was a soft laugh, followed by coughing, then wheezing._

_"Sammy?"_

_"I love you, Dean. You know that, right?"_

_Dean's pulse kicked up a few notches, "Yeah, love you too, what's going on?"_

_"There's an accident."_

_Dean stood out of his chair, hearing sirens from the other line, "Were you hit? Are you okay?"_

_"I'll be good, m'kay? Don' worry."_

_The sirens got louder._

_"Love you, Dean."_

_The line went dead._

 

Dean's whole body seemed to shake alive over the span of about half a second.  He opened his eyes and looked around for the cause of his trembling, searching the air for something that was inside his head.  He ran a hand over his face, trying to steady his heartbeat a little.

He looked out the window, the sky was just starting to lighten, stars gradually winking out one by one.  He'd need to walk around today, make sure nothing got too severely damaged in the Storm Of The Year.

"It's still drizzling... It can wait a bit, right?" he asked himself, leaning his jaw into his hand, stifling a yawn.

It could wait until there was some actual light in the sky, instead of the murky after-rain dawn darkness that was blanketed across the sky currently.

Dean stood, stretching his arms toward the ceiling and arching his back.  He didn't usually fall asleep at the table, but it wasn't necessarily an oddity, so he didn't think too much of it until he heard a soft whistle from the other side of the room that sent him crashing into the chair he'd just been sitting in as he staggered away from the noise.

It took him a few moments to fully process what had happened as well as what he'd just heard, and then suddenly, the sleeping at the table made sense.  He remembered the storm, and hearing a knock, then a voice, then there was a lump of wet human in his arms.  Stitches and joints popping and a name, what was the name, started with a... a C...

"Shit, right. _Castiel._ " he thought out loud, attempting to right both himself and the upset chair, "Fucking ten years, right? A whole decade alone and now this guy decides to injure himself in my goddamn forest and now I have to look after yet another person.  Fantastic, this one'll probably die too." he muttered, turning toward the kitchen.  

He heard a chuckle from the couch and whipped his whole body in that direction.

_"You know people can still hear you when you talk out loud, boy?"_

Bobby's words rang in his head and Dean could feel the color red practically replace his skin tone.

"That's reassuring." Castiel said, attempting to sit up and quickly realizing that he was in no shape to do that.

Dean crossed the floor in about two steps, swung open the door, and left, letting it bang shut behind him.

"There's a person in my house.  A real... a living person that was only semi-living when he actually showed up at my door in the middle of an earth-breaking thunderstorm oh my god." Dean leaned up against a tree and stared at the silhouetted line of the forest, "It has been a whole ass decade" he touched the necklace sitting against his chest gently, "And the world decides that, hey maybe this Thursday we'll just throw him another one, see how long it lasts this time." Dean laughed dryly, hand closing around the amulet, "Angels watching over us my ass, they're just playing tricks, Sammy." he muttered, turning and walking into the forest.

 

He walked for a while, clearing his head with the familiar monotony of checking traps and structures, as well as clearing broken branches out of familiar paths, tidying up nature, ironically.

Dean found himself at the river, standing farther back than usual (thank you flooding). He crouched down by the small divergent stream that ran off of the main body and reached into the cool water, watching the image of his fingers distort through it, "I have to go back.  He's probably in pain.  I'm not sure if he can still walk but I think he broke- or at least cracked- his ribs so sitting up probably hurts and his head was bleeding last night..." Dean's words trailed off and he splashed water on his face.  The sheer frigidity of the water brought his mind back into focus, "Christ." he sighed, the sound muffled by his palms, "This became a real mess, real fast."

He stood, wiping his face on the collar of his shirt as he started back toward the cabin, talking to himself the whole way,

"Do I even remember how to start a conversation with people? Well obviously, I do it with myself, so it's like that, but I don't respond after asking a question.  Do I even need to start a conversation? Is he even gonna wanna talk to me? Maybe he doesn't. Maybe that's good.  I don't want him here and he probably doesn't wanna be here anymore than he has to so I'll patch him up and he can get on his merry way, right? That's the best case scenario. But I also need to find out why he's here. How'd he get hurt? Possibly who was after him and why they were after him... That means a damn conversation."

He was standing in front of the door now.

Dean made a disgruntled noise that sounded like something between a huff of annoyance and a panicked whine and pushed the door open, standing in the doorway to let his eyes adjust to the lower light level.  Castiel tilted his head to the door, "The night in shining armor returns."

Dean felt his ears burn at the comment and stepped further into the cabin, letting the door close a little harder than strictly necessary.

Castiel chuckled lowly, "Did I startle you earlier?"

Dean's turn to laugh, "Nope, I just knock over my chair every morning, it's part of my routine even.  Wake up, stretch, knock over the chair, get on with my day." He muttered to himself.  The returning answer was a little bit of restrained laughter, followed by a whole lot of coughing.  He turned toward Castiel, "Shit, sorry. You weren't- people can hear me when I talk out loud."

Castiel attempted to control his coughing, "Yes, that's generally what ears are for."

That made Dean relax a little.  Sarcasm he could do, "You okay?" he asked, voice a little softer.

"Fantastic. Help me sit up, please."

After a moment of staring at Castiel's silhouette from across the room, Dean hesitantly stepped to the couch, bending at the waist and reaching around Castiel's back to help him sit up.

He stepped back when the man was situated, sitting on the far arm of the couch.

 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each looking the other over, assessing and cataloging details.

For example, Dean noticed how just about every piece of Castiel looked like a geometric puzzle.  He had a sharp jaw, a straight nose, just an angular face all around, (and if last night's clean-up told Dean anything, it was that the rest of the guy's body was that way too.  Sharp collarbones, hipbones... you could put a triangle just about anywhere on the guy) but the weird thing was, now that they weren't either closed or full of pain, he had... uncharacteristically soft eyes that really didn't fit with the whole... 'angular' theme... but somehow fit on his actual face...

A soft clearing of the throat that wasn't his own told Dean maybe he was the only one doing any assessing, and maybe he was being just a little bit creepy in the process.

His ears burned.

"So, Castiel..." he rolled the name off his tongue, attempting to be cold and robotic, to make up for his blush (despite earlier appearances saying he was absolutely anything but something resembling either cold or robotic).

Castiel shifted where he sat and Dean suppressed a smirk, maybe it had the intended effect after all.

"Care to tell me what you're doing in my forest?" 


	5. Snarky and Stoic and Socially Awkward

Honestly one of the first things Castiel thought was  _At least he seems too awkward to be a serial killer_.

Because really, who lives out in the middle of the forest all on their own for decades at a time except for serial killers.

So he was oddly relieved when he saw Dean jump, earlier.  Or when he saw how easily the guy blushed. 

It really wasn't difficult to make that happen, Castiel discovered.

So when Dean sat across from him on the couch, he was fully intending to be a little shit and see exactly how deep the shades of red could dig into his skin.

What he was most definitely not expecting was the calculating staring contest that took place as soon as Dean sat.  He took a few moments to search for details he hadn't deemed necessary to remember from the night before, the freckles on Dean's cheeks, the absolutely ridiculous length of his eyelashes, et cetera... but all of that only took exactly a few moments.  Dean, however, seemed to search Castiel with his eyes in a way that was neither predatory nor frightening in any way, but somehow seemed extremely exposing.

Castiel cleared his throat, hoping Dean maybe just got lost in his head for a minute and was not, in fact,  _fucking undressing me with those goddamn eyes._

Speaking of, his eyes were met with a shockingly bright green color that in and of itself made Castiel's heart beat just a little harder.

"So, Castiel..." Dean began eventually, his eyes harder than previous behavior had let on.

Cas shifted a little where he sat, hoping to play it off as some sort of injury discomfort.  The real reason was far too embarrassing.  He definitely  _was not_ blushing because of the absolutely fucking  _obscene_ way Dean decided to play with his name.

"Care to tell me what you're doing in my forest?"

Castiel's words failed him.  He was still recovering from the first part of the sentence, and the answer to the actual question was as shameful as his stupidly erratic heartbeat.

He didn't do anything wrong! He had a permit, survival guides, his family knew where he was, when he was expected back, he made sure not to leave a mess and always pick up any trash...  So why did he feel like this was illegal?

"I- uh... I'm hiking... a hiking trip." he managed to get out.

_Smooth as broken glass._

Dean furrowed his eyebrows, speaking quickly under his breath, "So he's not running. Of course not Jesus Christ nobody would run from somebody through the 100-mile woods.  Some people could... No that was just you being a paranoid dipshit."

Castiel tilted his head to the side,  _It's like watching gollum._ He thought to himself, smiling faintly at the falsely private conversation Dean was having with himself, "Dean, why do you talk to yourself?" 

Dean actually recoiled a little at the question, as if he hadn't been aware he was speaking aloud.

_He probably wasn't..._

Dean's face went a little red, "Because I had to talk to somebody for ten years." he commented shortly, "You're in my forest, I'm the one asking the questions, got it?" 

Castiel couldn't help think of the way cats walked with a false confidence after falling off of something.  He smiled a little bit, "Okay."

Dean stood off the couch and took to pacing around the room, "A hiking trip.  100-mile woods, why?"

A broken question, sure, but something Castiel had practiced in his head so many times that the answer slipped off his tongue before he'd actually decided to say it, "I wanted to hike through something so vast in order to prove that I am not just the failure my family believes me to be, I am self-sufficient enough to walk through one hundred miles of wilderness and come out alive."

That made Dean pause his steps, looking over in Castiel's direction with a sort of calculating stare.

The minute of silence was enough to make Castiel shift in his seat again, turning to look out of the window.  That was the first time he'd actually... said that out loud.  It sounded a lit more petulant than he'd intended. He’d meant to sound determined, like he was accomplishing the task of a lifetime, climbing his own Everest. Instead he sounded like a rebellious teenager trying to escape his parents protective wrath... he wasn’t surprised at all when Dean snorted humorlessly,

”Well you’re doing a fantastic job so far.” Dean’s eyes moved up and down Castiel’s body, pausing on each of his injuries briefly as if to rub in the sense of ‘your dumb ass almost died last night’ even further. 

“I’m not dead yet, am I?” Castiel asked rhetorically, shifting under the scrutinizing gaze. Maybe he didn’t have the most... eloquent way of speaking, but the volume of expression Castiel could see in Dean’s eyes made up for the grammatical errors and severe lack of verbal expression.

”You’re welcome.”

That in and of itself made Castiel’s face break open in a stupid little smile, trying to suppress the laughter so as not to aggravate his rib injuries. Snarky and stoic and socially awkward, _not the most fluid of mixtures but definitely an interesting one,_ Castiel thought, _Dean made it interesting._ He noticed that Dean was looking at him funny, like he’d just randomly sprouted an extra pair of ears and he couldn’t tell if that had really happened or he was having a stroke, so Castiel schooled his expression, “Thank you, Dean.”

 

x

 

Not escaping somebody. Good. Castiel was attempting to prove his worth by surviving, which in the present he was doing a shit job of. He was alive now because he had the sheer extreme luck of the gods on his side and managed to stumble on Dean’s home. 

“I just can’t fucking escape humanity, can I?” Dean said to himself, standing off the couch and walking over to the wall. There was a pen attached to a string hanging on a nail next to a calendar. Dean had managed to keep one person alive that he cared about, and he was fortunate enough to have even that. 

Bobby had thought he was absolutely batshit insane when Dean had told the man who’d been a father figure to him when his own was too busy drinking or picking fights to act the part himself that he wanted to move out to the middle of fucking nowhere to protect the world, and he was right to think that. Dean knew how absolutely psychotic it sounded, but his heart was set anyway. 

Bobby had been the one to help him move, fix up the cabin and map out the land with him. Dean was grateful to have somebody like that still in his life but he was absolutely terrified the whole time, paranoid that somehow he was going to get Bobby killed too. 

He didn’t, and Bobby left as soon as he could per Dean’s request. He’d left a satellite phone, however, and had told Dean to use it when he needed somebody to talk to.

Dean didn’t call for the first six months, and got as close of an ass-kicking as possible over the phone. 

It was nice to think somebody cared if he was alive or not but really he called because he was disoriented and kind of lost. He’d lost all sense of time and had just... waited. The first six months were a blur of mindless work, sunsets and staring at the sky. He’d remembered the satellite phone when the headache he had got bad enough that he had been hiding under a pillow for as long as the sun had been up. As soon as Bobby stopped yelling at him and the throbbing in his head had stopped increasing in intensity he’d just asked brokenly,

”Bobby, what’s today’s date?” 

He could have sworn he heard the tears in Bobby’s eyes. 

They’d made a deal after that, Dean would call once a month at most, once every three if he couldn’t do it that often, and once every year Bobby would send necessary items to a specific drop point in the forest where Dean could collect it. Every year, without Dean asking, that care package included a calendar and a pen. 

That was what he did now, remembering his routine, marked off another day on the calendar with a red ‘X’ and let it drop to his side. 

 

Next he knew, Dean was kneeling down next to the spring about a mile behind his cabin, dirt coving his hands and arms as he knelt in the mud. He was panting, so he had probably run there, and there was an axe strewn carelessly next to him. So he’d gotten through his chores, and judging by the sweat bonding his shirt to his skin he’d been either fast or furious. 

Dean rinsed his hands off in the stream, taking more time than necessary in washing the dirt off of everywhere he could see it, even stripping his shirt in order to get the dirt out of that as well,  then splashing his face and hair, letting the cool water seep into his brain and his thoughts and slow down the racing of his head. 

Walking back took less time than he’d expected, but Dean spent the majority of the time talking to himself and discussing the events of the night, and today, as well as what the fuck he was going to do next. 

There was no conclusion. There was no plan. 

  Out of sheer curiosity, Dean went around and checked all of his chores again, and they were all finished. He dropped his axe next to the woodpile that was substantially larger than it had been the night before. 

Full, autonomous autopilot. Interesting. 

 

X

 

Dean winced when he entered the house, banging the door open louder than necessary, forgetting he had a guest. 

_An intruder, more like._ Dean thought to himself, closing the door a hell of a lot more silently than he had opened it. 

“Do you always enter the room like you’re expecting something to kill you as soon as you open the door?” Dean heard the voice come from the couch and he damn near rolled his eyes,

”Funny, none of the other guests ever complained.”

He heard a soft snort, which he decided to ignore. 

“Is that what you meant yesterday? You’ve had other people stumble on your cabin and not make it out alive?”

Dean went stiff as images poured through his head, his brother hooked up to machines that kept him alive, his father the same way, then his mother, then flames. His felt his skin heat as if the flames were at the tips of his fingers once again. He swallowed down the fire and stomped on the panic blooming in his head and turned around to see Castiel sitting up and facing him with an almost... scared look on his face. 

Dean blinked, cleared his throat, “I should uh, check your stitches.” 

Castiel just nodded, leaning against the back of the couch, a wary look in his eyes, “Okay.”


	6. Hi I'm Sorry, You Don't Care, But Hello

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An apology to those who don't really care!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a bug with my notes and I'm hoping this note fixes it

Hello! This isn't gonna matter to most people (probably any of y'all so haha) but I feel like I gotta get this out there.

I plan to write professionally, it's my dream. This here fanfiction (shell of it anyway) is a plot/story that I absolutely love for some reason so the fanfic is basically the roughest of rough drafts to ever exist for a book.

So more importantly, I did a bad thing and asked for advice from someone I thought I had a healthy relationship at the time about this fanfiction and it was so negative and it really opened my eyes to all the shit she had been putting me through and really put a damper on the production of something (this fic) that I was really truly excited about for the first time in a long ass while so yay depression right?

Then I realized I didn't need to take any shit from anybody and that it didn't have to be good because I was enjoying the absolute hell out of it so who actually gives a flying fuck what anybody really thinks about it right?

Plus, some people like the cheesy stupid romantic terribly written bullshit. I know I do.

Okay anyway  
Y'all don't care, but this will have more updates hopefully, and though they will be a little bit spread out, they will happen, and I will most definitely continue trying to improve my skills.

Okay you can stop pretending to care and I will start the draft for the next chapter so you can decide if you want to waste your attention on my (intentionally) cheesy terrible fanfic.

Have a lovely day :) (or night, this is ao3 after all get some sleep xD)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a bug with my notes and I'm hoping this note fixes it  
> (Edit: It didn't, help me please)

**Author's Note:**

> I think the enter key was my favorite one for this 'preface'... That was a mistake that I'm too lazy to fix. It should get better from here on out.


End file.
